And then I moved into a most excellent new home, but it's been an intense and mentally-eroding project getting it all together because the previous tenants lived like animals and maybe never cleaned the space ever because it felt better living in their own filth? All the while trying to make it a livable space, Matt and I have been learning how to cohabit (we love each other, but learning how to live together naturally comes with its own challenges)....

And, very suddenly, work became just crushing, CRUSHING. It was an absolute mental assault on me. I recall commuting home in tears some evenings.

And I didn't even know what to do about Christmas giving, after all the Ikea and hardware store trips. I'm hemorrhaging money.

I finally got away from the world for an hour with my therapist, just a slumping pile of utter burnt-outedness and self-unrecognition in her chair...

Therapist: What's going on.Me: A lot. A lot. I got hit by a car and I don't think I've processed or have coped with that properly. Matt went missing one night and we can't fill in the blanks and it's traumatized the both of us. Something appeared on my PAP test. My great uncle died. Matt's former student was killed in Rome and it has devastated him and his circle of friends. Moving, fucking moving. Work, fucking WORK! I'm so tired and so exhausted and it's Christmas and I can't get it together...June: ...o_O

I knew I wasn't well. But how unwell?--

--to the degree that the continuation of that conversation was my therapist wanting me to go to my HR department and ask about the process of short-term leave.

And you know what? I HATE my job. But the thing is that I've developed such a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with this institution that telling them that I need to peace for a bit to collect myself mentally is really scary to me.

June: What are you doing for the holidaysMe: Going to Edmonton, my yearly Christmas pilgrimage. I mean... that's stress too, but I guess a different sort of stress? I get to eat and sleep >shrug<June: Good, just take some time. Reflect.

So my sister and I left for Edmonton and stayed in our aunt's guest suite in her condo building. But three days in, the heat broke and for two nights, we tried to sleep through Edmonton's brand-of-cold coldest days: -32°C. It was just FUCKED how cold it was, we even had our down coats laid on top of us while in bed.

Who the fuck settled on this part of Canada and decided it was a good idea?

When a guy finally came to fix the thermostat, it resulted in a pipe bursting in our suite and it flooded our whole room, with our goddamn suitcases wide open.

...so one of the more less successful pilgrimages.

I can't tell how you how shot my nerves are, having not been able to recover well crisis after crisis.

That was just the icing and my relatives don't know why I was so pissed that day because "things dry". So I've been written off as an overreactive and volatile black sheep.

I resent the place I'm in mentally right now. I'm incapacitated, I'm crippled, I'm not a useful human. I can't be there for the people I love. I can't handle the least bit of emotional labour. I can't be a good presence. Lifting anything immediately exhausts me. This is not me, this is absolutely not me.

And I would love to get back to me. Who had a great life outlook. And who could guide my friends. Or just listen. And be giving. And make people laugh. Ride with people again... wait, did all of these cosmically-fucked events happen all in a row because I hung up the bike temporarily!?! Yeesh, quel punishment. I'm sorry for the smote, bike gods??